• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.15 no.12
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• pp.142-147
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• 1998

Developing robot hands with multi-degree-of-freedom is one of the topics that researchers have recently begun to improve the limitation by adding flexibility and dexterity. In this study, an articulated servo-pneumatic robot hand system with direct-drive joints has been developed whose main feature is the minimization of the dimension. The servo-pneumatic system is advantageous to fabricate a dexterous robot hand system due to the high torque-to-weight and torque-to-volume ratio. This enables the design of a finger joint with an integrated rotary vane type actuator which produces high output torque without reduction gears, being very robust. In order to control the servo-pneumatic finger joints, a miniature proportional valve that can be attached to the robot hand is required. In this paper, a flapper nozzle type 4/3-way proportional directional valve has been designed and tested. The experimental results show that the developed valve can control a finger joint satisfactorily without much vibratory joint movements and acoustic noises.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.16 no.1 s.94
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• pp.42-48
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• 1999

A control method for a robot hand grasping a object in a partially unknown environment will be proposed, where a proximate sensor detecting the distance between the fingertip and object was used. Particularly, the finger joints were driven servo-pneumatically in this study. Based on the proximate sensor signal the finger motion controller could plan the grasping process divided in three phases ; fast aproach, slow transitional contact and contact force control. That is, the fingertip approached to the object with full speed, until the output signal of the proximate sensor began to change. Within the perating range of the proximate sensor, the finger joint was moved by a state-variable feedback position controller in order to obtain a smooth contact with the object. The contact force of fingertip was then controlled using the blocked-line pressure sensitivity of the flow control servovalve for finger joint control. In this way, the grasping impact could be reduced without reducing the object approaching speed. The performance of the proposed grasping method was experimentally compared with that of a open loop-controlled one.